Freddie Thompson was teaching self-defense to blind children when I met him at the Cleveland Sight Center 10 years ago. I winced as I watched the well-known martial artist work on improving the children’s balance and sense of physical awareness by pushing and then whacking them with soft, foam rubber bats.

“I wanted to teach them how to defend themselves if they were ever forced into a conflict. But more than that, I was trying to teach them how to anticipate physical danger and recognize escape routes whenever possible,” Freddie recalled in a conversation Tuesday.

Freddie had called to talk about violence in Greater Cleveland. Like so many area residents, he still remains sick to his stomach about the death of Derrice Alexander Jr., the two-year-old toddler who police say was killed by his father earlier this month.

The boy was killed following a domestic dispute between his parents. Homicide detectives say that Derrice Alexander Sr. fired a single shot into his girlfriend’s apartment while leaving the property and unintentionally hit his son.

“That little boy never had a prayer for survival. But what about his father? What kind of disrespectful attitude did he have toward his girlfriend to even risk killing the mother or the child?” Freddie wondered.

“Where did that kind of self-loathing and self-hatred come from? And why wasn’t it ever addressed?”

My friend is neither a psychologist nor a social worker. But his questions are good ones. They deserve answers.

Given that the body count in Cleveland continues to rise quicker than an August thermometer, a lot of people are asking questions similar to Freddie’s and are recycling old ideas about how to reduce the carnage.

Some politicians are again calling for public meetings to address the violence. Mayor Frank Jackson last week issued a call for a limit on the number of guns that a person can legally purchase annually in the city, as well as for the creation of a registry for convicted gun offenders.

Still other concerned citizens are trotting out predictable canards, such as the argument which holds that an attack on gun manufacturers and the gun lobby will save lives.

It’s possible, although unlikely, that any of these ideas could lead to an increase in public safety. Talking about the homicide problem, which mostly affects black males, and trying to get guns out of the hands of convicted gun offenders is better than simply doing nothing.

But here’s the rub.

Getting illegal guns out of the hands of young men with no compunction against taking a life will remain a Herculean task with or without the endless river of guns and munitions that floods the streets of America.

The real problem isn’t the endless river of guns – it is the total lack of respect for life. So what do we do?

New York City adopted its now infamous “Stop and Frisk” program that, for a number of years, appeared to lead to a dramatic drop in homicide. As a result, the city has been deemed safer for everyone.

But the program has also been viewed as racially biased and is now being challenged in federal courts. Mayor Bill de Blasio, who took office earlier this year, has vowed to reform the program, which probably means scale it back.

Other cities are now experimenting with strict curfew laws and restrictive local gun ordinances, much like Cleveland’s, that will make it easier for police to track both illegal and legal gun owners.

But the crux of the problem remains rather simple: We’re dealing with yet another generation of young men who would rather settle any perceived difference with deadly force rather than with words or, if conflict is unavoidable, with their hands.

“If we could find a way to change our approach to teaching young men how to resolve conflict. If we could teach them how to fight, we could also teach them how to avoid a fight.

“The guns are never going to go away. But if we could instill in young men the confidence that they gain from knowing how to fight … that they don’t need a gun …. many more of them would simply walk away from senseless conflicts,” said the old Kung Fu instructor.

I think Freddie may be on to something here. It’s not the confident young men and boys who are creating the endless deadly street mayhem.

If Freddie could teach a young blind man how to fight, why can’t we find a way to teach young men with perfect vision to walk away from a fight?

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